The problem is that once prices like this are introduced, especially in a site run shop where the prices are set, it's only further reinforcing the devaluation of sP instead of reversing that effect. Due to that, eliminating sP from the economy such as with the IH change while reinforcing current sP value through something like the Antique Shop mostly screws new users in particular while doing little to inflate the value of sP. The site has made some pretty contradictory moves on that front over the past few months as they say they want sP to be more valuable yet continue to do things that reinforce a lower value. That's part of why it's a little difficult to stomach this ultra broken RS system that's only feeding the problem too.

Ah! Thank you for explaining that to me. I hear a lot about economic terms on threads like this but I don't really understand what they mean.

I guess these changes look bad from the outside, but when you look at what they actually mean, they're meant to do good.

I've been seeing a lot of frustrated users. If this is really the purpose of the changes, I don't think it's going to be a bad thing. It's going to sting a little now but in the long run it should be good. However, I don't think that many people understand this and the reasoning behind such a change, simply because staff hasn't said anything about it! They just said they wanted to improve the system and these seemingly negative changes resulted from it.

I understand people's frustrations but I'm also starting to understand why these changes are needed.

Thanks for your answer!

- I agree that restocking was great the way it was. Believe me, I was a hardcore restocker and the changes have put a serious damper on my ability to make money that way.

However, what I (and Sopheroo) was referring to related to an sP fountain being closed off.

I do think that some changes were going to need to be made, because there is a glut of items on the market that are devalued, but I think the place to start wasn't with restocking. It was at the source of the issue, which imo is vending. And several people have pointed out (correctly, I might add) that once restocking has stabilized and the staff move on to fixing the vending issues, that's going to throw everything right back out of whack, even more severely than it did this time.

I'm all for a roll back and a re-evaluation of the restocking situation as it is right now because what's happening has not only upset users, it's starting to upset the balance of the dynamics for the site.

[edit] I also think that has a point in that the price points for the new shop are reinforcing the lower value for sP, but at the same time, how could they not price it like that for now? Is it not an option to adjust prices in that shop as the value for sP rises? (not that I'm assuming that you don't think this is possible, but just as an example)

TRUST ME I AM PISSED ABOUT RESTOCKING CHANGES.

Yeah, staff knows where the issue is, but, the way they're doing this is...weird. Like "Oh, we're trying this and hoping it will work"

The more I look at this, the more I look at things and I feel they're going in there blind.

It definitely worries me that the staff seem to be testing new changes without any thought of the repercussions they could bring. I mean, these changes ARE messing with the entire economy of Subeta. They could be good changes, but it's quite a risk to take.

This issue is a large one, no doubt, but also have no staff response is pretty worrisome. There are lots of frustrated and confused users wanting answers and they simply aren't getting any.

Very true. Fixing restocking does nothing when vending spits out rares like they're cheap 5 cent bubble gum. It makes restocking even less attractive and even more frustrating. It all needs to be balanced out but right now it feels just like it's being a half serious attempt and is ignored in favor of working on another feature nobody needs/wants changed/I don't know. u_u;

-sighs and looks at Super Rare stickers being worth close to nothing-

I have a real interest in how staff could have tested these changes outside of the site. It does smack of staff kind of going in blind and not testing the changes first, but do they have an available area where changes like that can be fully tested to see how they play out before pushing them to the site as a whole?

This is not to say that I think what happened was right, it is a genuine curiosity. If there's no way to test it but to do it live, well, there's a mighty big issue right there.

I think the issue is more communication. We were not told about the IH changes until after they were done. We were barely told about the RS changes. That's more worrisome to me.

just sad atm thats all, tho i am curious as to how sp sink ih will pan out.

IH isn't meant to be a SP sink, because we inject items, not SP into it.

You're preaching to the choir on the need to adjust vending. I think there's a bottom up approach that should have been used if the goal is to increase buying power, stabilize the economy, and create an RS system in which items don't sit in the shops forever (which ironically is exactly what's happening now, but it's just the same devalued items over and over instead of a diverse collection of inventory). Vending definitely needed to come before RS changes because it has such a large impact on the entire economy, and in fixing vending there's then a potential need introduced to also establish new processes for the token shop, wizard quests, fragmentizer, and the recycle beast to name a few. Then there's also dealing with the mass amount of wizard tokens already stored as existing currency onsite. It all has a trickle down effect, and due to that it's always best to start from the bottom and work your way up. The opposite way simply doesn't work, which we're getting the enjoyment of experiencing now. Woohoo for us.

The prices in the Antique Shop definitely could be adjusted down at anytime in theory (everything can be adjusted, ironically the root of our current RS problems); however, staff has already said that they want the items in that shop to maintain those values and be something users work toward. If that's the case, how many new users (or for that matter existing users) will feel motivated to work toward a 50M+ sP direct to collection plushie if their ability to earn sP has been cut to a fraction of what the rest users have been able to earn in recent years? The message just isn't there that adjusting these prices is even potentially in the cards now or in the future, so I'm not holding out hope on that front.

- Oh indeed. I think the lines of communication on certain things are getting clogged and not used at all. This is not a good precedent.

It's understandable to keep some things under wraps (ie., new features or plots/events/items) but changes to gameplay or to the site as a whole need to be announced ahead of time and not just in the forums but on the news page as well.

On another site I recently quit, the owner is notorious for just doing whatever she wants, despite the fact that a lot of times the userbase either doesn't like it or that it suffers because 90% of the time it's a RL cash based feature. I do not want Subeta to join the ranks of sites like that because it drives the users away to other things. I have watched several people leave the other site prior to me, and heard of many more jumping ship since, mostly because no one on staff listens. (they are all drinking the crazy-train coolaid the owner is passing out, I swear)

- oh bleh. I understand wanting to create goals for users, but there comes a limit to what people are capable of doing too. I don't mind the prices as they are now because they match the current market values for those items but if the time comes when sP starts to gain more value, then it has a dire need to be adjusted. Not taking that into consideration at all is just disheartening.

Agreed. With the exception of a few of the junkier weapons that are way overpriced compared to better weapons available in the MC and the user market (which doesn't bother me, I just don't think they're going to sell much due to that), I'm fine with where the Antique Shop prices are at now based on the value of sP and user concerns that were vocalized regarding potential item devaluation. It just doesn't make sense to maintain those prices if the ability to earn sP drops significantly. Eliminating a diverse and steady supply of stock in the NPC shops to hinder restocking, limiting quest rewards due to user shop inflation following the RS changes, and limiting IH profitability all while increasing user shop pricing up to 100M sP, introducing the Antique Shop, and limiting SubQ stock to maintain higher user shop prices with a lower probability of being able to purchase the item directly through the SubQ at a lower price sends two completely different messages. It just seems like it's going to cause mass disparity throughout the market instead of stabilizing it.

I honestly don't see how making things ridiculously hard for new players is supposed to help the site.

I'm a multi billionaire because I've been here for ten and a half years. People talk about the rich hoarding sP or choosing not to spend it but there's got to be things that people want to spend their virtual money on. There have been many suggestions for sP sinks but the only one adopted was buying treasure chest slots directly.

I could spend a couple of billion buying CSC Gift Cards just for the sake of it. This wouldn't remove any sP from the site, though, because it would be going to other players. There's also a limit to how many CSC Gift Cards I need - my wardrobe is full of stuff I've never got round to wearing and there's very little that's suitable for my pets' treasure chests and galleries released these days.

I'm not interested in plushie and beanbag collections or having a gourmet pet. I'm a casual battler so have no great ambitions to get my battling pet to the top tier any time soon - I'm just training him from doing a few battle quests a day in case there's another plot with a bit of battling.

Yep. Because I don't vend, I have a huge hoard of tokens, even after selling several thousand and using another 8000 in trade for an item. The only thing keeping me from getting every token shop item released is the the timer.

Speaking of tokens... How is vending negatively impacting the economy - because it's producing too many rare items, and so they're getting devalued? Since I don't vend, I'm not clear on its impact.

As for the Antique Shop items, I was a bit horrified at the prices... way more than I can afford. And probably way more than I'd pay even if I COULD afford them. I got the two direct-to-collection stickers, and that was it. But then, I've only been playing for about a year and haven't concentrated on saving... and I remember somewhere staff said other antique items like book drive stuff (which is what I really want) wouldn't be as pricey because they weren't as rare.

Having quests give less SP is not going to make things ridiculously hard for new players. It just means that people are going to reach their goals in two weeks instead of one week. That's not going to be a bad thing, in the long run.

I still see no reason for the wizard to give SP, namely. Tokens are the real thing of value he's giving. Same with questers that give good rewards on a daily basis, Maleria's rewards are good enough that she could do with giving less, or no SP

What is going to be bad for newbies is letting SP become more and more worthless. Yeah, they're going to be able to have 3M in one day with quests alone, but won't be able to buy anything because the average user has like, 20M-22M.

Vendingg introduces a lot of items in the economy, without removing a single SP from it.

Its crazy how noticeable these changes were after a break away from the site. Like everyone all I can hope for is a little clarity on the situation, even just so much of an indication that things are being improved because if RS'ing is screwed along with quests as a result of inflation actually making a living is not as fun as a used to be. Add on top of that total reluctance to invest any actual real money and that's pretty much my main sources of income on the site wiped out, all thats really left is vending.

Things will become ridiculously hard for new players now that restocking has been killed. Some items asked for in quests don't restock any more and don't turn up very often in vending either.

Tokens aren't much of a good reward when most items from vending are worth very little and you have to be lucky to be here when the Token Shop restocks. As for Maleria's rewards being good enough, I tend to get cheap junk from her. If I spent a fortune on rarer items with a loss of sP I'm guessing I could get better items in return. This isn't much help to new players who can't afford to lose sP on quests, though.

sP has become worthless because there's so little to spend it on. Having Quest Point and Forum Point shops is all very well but they don't take sP out of the system. It would have made more sense for the items in these special NPC shops to cost sP - not as much as the MC but from 500K to 1,000,000. The MC needs to be turned into a very expensive department store for richer players. Meanwhile, SBQ isn't much of an sP sink when items hardly every restock now.

I have a 2.5M profit from Maleria today because I got a booster and a Ikunox Seed from her. Maleria is probably the questgiver I make the biggest profit on, and has been for the last 4 years or so.

The quest shop is there to incite people into questing, instead of mashing a big red button. The forum shop is there to incite people to take part in the forums. There are a lot of problems on site, but I actually like getting rewarded for taking part in the forums, now.

Nice items but you have to sell them before you can count the sP profit. This is fine for richer players but not much help to beginners.

But it doesn't take sP out of the system. The good thing for new people, however, is that they can get quest points from doing really cheap quests. It effectively works out as free stuff if we are careful to avoid quests which lose sP. :)

I don't mind getting forum points when I post although there's nothing in the shop I want at the moment. What I can't understand, though, is this idea that Subeta should be some kind of social media site. If I want to socialise I go to Facebook. If I want to discuss something I'm interested in I go to discussion forums covering my areas of interest. I'm probably not the only player who does this.

Where Subeta's concerned the only topics I post in are in Site Feedback and Suggestions unless it's a holiday where I've got to dance with people, give them flowers or trick or treat at their virtual houses. Giving me the occasional forum point for posts doesn't incite me to post in the other forums.